Page 67 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

It was the ships docking on the other side of the island, somehow coming from the north, with flags she didn’t recognize and with Fae who were now mounting the isle, molding the rock before her eyes so it built stairways leading directly above the trap.

“Merrick!” There was no other word in her mind, and he must have heard the pure terror in her voice because he spun, his dark eyes taking in the scene quicker than she had.

“Fuck! Chain her or kill her, Loche! We need to go!” Merrick screamed so loudly that everyone on their ship and several on the ones beside them looked over, then moved to what was about to unfold around them.

Rebel and nonrebel froze as one before they ceased all fighting, weapons clanging to the floor as they were abandoned. People were running back to the ships, trying to get away from the Fae soldiers who would follow the wave, aiming to crush those who now had nowhere to go in the cove.

Loche looked exactly how Lessia felt, his face so ashen she worried he might pass out. “What do we do?”

She knew that had it been a different situation, Merrick might have teased the regent for turning fully to him, but Merrick didn’t even blink as he responded, “We run.”

“No—” Lessia started, but Merrick dragged her to him, his face so hard that it reminded her of how it had looked when they first got to know each other.

“If we leave now, we might survive. I say might , Lessia!” Merrick’s dark eyes whirled with such emotion that she whimpered at the sight.

“I know! I know how much it hurts! Trust me! But they are already dead! They’re not getting out of there—not with that wave and the fucking anchors of the rebel ships. ”

Another hand folded around her arm as she shook her head.

Loche.

“He’s right, Lessia.” The regent jerked his head toward where Iviry had already begun strapping weapons onto her tall body, her eyes flying to the cove and the ships trapped within as she did it. “We need to go!”

“There is a boat back here! It’s small, but we’ll fit on it.”

Lessia’s blood ran cold at the new voice before she realized it belonged to Zaddock, and she knew warmth should have filled her at the sight of him, of Amalise in his arms, injured but alive, of her sister walking hand in hand with a bloodied Raine, of Pellie and Kerym trailing behind them, of Venko running right into Ardow’s arms.

They were alive.

But it was as if ice had permanently taken the place of her usually warm blood, and when Kerym searched the group, his blue eyes more muddled than she’d ever seen them, she actually shivered beneath the sheen of sweat covering her skin.

His eyes captured hers, and she shook her head at his silent question.

Kerym didn’t scream.

He didn’t even cry.

It was as if he knew.

He let Pellie take his hand as he asked, “Where?”

Lessia slapped a hand over her mouth, violent sobs beginning to shake her body, and not even Merrick’s hand on her back helped anymore as her eyes darted to where they’d left Thissian, and Kerym walked right over, sinking to his knees and lying down across his brother’s chest.

Pellie sat right beside him, her hand whitening under the pressure of Kerym’s grip, but the woman didn’t complain once as Kerym seemed to hold on to her with everything left within him.

“We need to go,” Zaddock urged, and although his face did not betray his fear, his arms did.

They shook as they held on to her friend, and Lessia knew Amalise must be truly injured because she didn’t make a joke about it—she only turned her face in to Zaddock’s neck when Kerym’s low wailing began folding all around them.

Lessia couldn’t stand the sound.

Nor could she stand her sister clinging to Raine while he looked down at her, seemingly as devastated as Kerym as he pressed his forehead against Frelina’s.

Not even watching Soria help Loche chain his mother to the ship, her screams of betrayal layering across the crimson-stained water, was bearable.

Actual tears flooded the regent’s eyes as they traveled to his people—the ones now caged between the tall, curved cliffs and the equally tall wave.

Lessia’s gaze flew to the scene where both the people of Ellow and the rebels had started to realize the trap they’d been driven into.

Blood-curdling screams bounced against the water, and panicking rebels and humans alike jumped into the sea when rocks began falling upon them, lifted into the air by invisible hands, steered by the Fae on the cliffs above them, while the merciless wave neared faster than should have been possible even with magic.

It must have been the Oakgards’ Fae who stood upon that dark cliff, Lessia realized with a sinking heart, given their tan skin and darker features, the more rounded ears they sported, and… their magic definitely worked.

Her eyes snagged on the wyverns who hadn’t moved backward, but not forward, either, their colorful scales seemingly too gaudy for the abominable sight ahead of them.

Rage, moving as fast through her body as the damned wave ahead, surged within her, and Lessia didn’t care that Merrick said something, his hand tugging at her own.

Shutting him out, she turned inward, screaming at the wyvern leader. Are you just going to let us die? Is that what you stand for?

It was easy to find the bond within her, the one forever tying her to the cowardly creatures, and she tugged on it when Auphore didn’t respond quickly enough.

We won’t make it in time, Elessia.

Try! she screamed back at him. Just! Fucking! Try!

She would have compelled him, and in turn all the other wyverns, as that’s how the bond must have worked.

She would have forcefully pulled on all those strings.

But Auphore sounded truly crushed as he responded, It’s too late.

“No!” Lessia realized she screamed it out loud when the truth of Auphore’s words sank in.

The wyverns were too far behind the wave.

Lessia shook off Merrick’s hand as she ran to the railing, and her voice cracked and trembled as she turned her scream to the Fae above them—the only ones who might hear her plea.

“Please!” she cried. “Please don’t do this! Please stop!”

Lessia could feel eyes on her, their warmth shifting over her face.

But the rocks kept falling.

And the wave Rioner was conjuring kept rushing.

Merrick sprinted to her side when she collapsed against the railing, her hands barely holding her body up.

Fear, desperation, and despair filled the air.

From her friends behind her.

From Kerym’s wails.

From Meyah’s pleading.

From the cries of the people ahead.

Both the ones trying to flee and the ones realizing this was it—that this was the end.

She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t… just fucking stand here… couldn’t just run.

Please! There must be something ? —

Another sound joined the ones pounding in Lessia’s ears.

A softer one.

A low cry and a hum and a demand all at once.

Peeking over the railing once more, Lessia met Ydren’s violet gaze—the wyvern hadn’t listened to her after all—and as soon as she did…

She knew what she must do.

She could see the same determination in the young wyvern’s eyes as she inclined her head to Lessia, and without looking behind her, Lessia started crawling over the thick wooden rail, when a hand—a gentle, begging touch—stopped her movement.

Her body didn’t give her a choice, and she turned to meet Merrick’s eyes.

“Please.” His whisper shattered every piece of her heart, and as she opened her mouth, his hand locked around her wrist. “ Please .”

Ydren screeched behind them again.

And there wasn’t time.

She didn’t have the time to tell him everything she felt for him, why she had to do this, why he had made her strong enough to do this.

So instead, she let the magic brimming under her skin set her eyes on fire, and she’d never hated herself as much as she did in the moment she purred “Let me go” to her mate.

His fingers released her immediately.

Lessia didn’t look back as she threw herself onto Ydren’s back, nearly falling from her when the wyvern took off as fast as the wave that raced toward them.